Guide for Entrepreneurs

For a country to grow, you need entrepreneurs, feels Mr. Chandra Mohan, a rare blend of an engineer-scientist, an inventor, a visionary entrepreneur, an educationist and, a top-class thought leader in total quality management. And when he speaks, everyone listens.  His second book, which is autobiographical guide for the entrepreneurs, was released in Chandigarh today, “Making Entrepreneurs: Lessons from a Lifetime”.


Mr. Chandra Mohan, who was conferred Padmashree in 1985 for his entrepreneurial acumen and innovative business strategies, believes that the difference between entrepreneurship and small business is significant and lies in innovation and high risk-taking ability, leading to far larger and faster wealth creation.

And risk, he points out, is at its highest when one is launching a drastic innovation in product or production technology in an intensely competitive field. This is just what he himself did with Punjab Tractors Ltd (PTL) and the 100% Indian ‘Swaraj’ tractor that his team designed and built from scratch in a national lab 47 years ago, then mass-produced and marketed it against the best of CKD-based global brand names.

Mr Chandra Mohan is passionate about upgrading technical skills of the young engineering graduates and insists on imparting entrepreneurial skills to them so that they can find solutions to teeming problems that face the country today, the reason that he founded and established the country's first school of excellence for TQM and entrepreneurship under Punjab Technical University.

Keshub Mahindra, founder and chairman emeritus of Mahindra & Mahindra, in his foreword to the book writes: “The true genius of Chandra Mohan is his inquisitive searching mind and his capacity to think out of the box.”


Looking back at the age of 80, Chandra Mohan has been entrepreneuring for the last 48 years of his professional innings of 57 years, with technology and innovation as the focus. That journey still continues, with a patent in photovoltaics filed as recently as 2008. Of course, he says, there have also been failures on the way – but they have not deterred him from sculpting new dreams. “Innovation is seemingly an organic component of my blood-stream,” he writes.

The book is what he himself describes as “a critical self-analysis in search of a process for identifying potential entrepreneurs out of students pursuing higher professional education and then grooming them for setting up their projects along with their professional courses... and mentoring them all the way through till they are ready to commence implementation as they graduate.”

With each of its chapters ending with highly useful tips encapsulated under “Learnings”, Chanbra Mohan sees entrepreneurship as a social responsibility, which he aptly concludes in the last chapter “Creating the Zen for Entrepreneurship?”:  “This self-analysis of lifetime journey began with the objective of drawing some lessons to help a society promote the cult of entrepreneurship for raising its living standards.”

(“Making Entrepreneurs: Lessons from a Lifetime”, Gyan Publishing House, pp.296. Price Rs.850)

Go Viral

Engaging your targeted audience on the social media is an essential component of online public relations efforts.  It is not about informing them but involving them in the campaign and make them act or respond to the communication. Though there are different tools available to measure the ultimate outcome of the efforts, to collate and integrate the analytics, Hubspot is a veritable to do the job.

This video provides interesting insight how one can integrate various online social media platforms to make the communication go viral.

What social media policy your company should have?

Social media is growing everyday giving access to every individual to use it with impunity.  And unknowingly, in a bigger corporate setup, employees use the platform sharing status or information unwittingly which they should not be sharing.
Many organisations restrict/block the access to the social media. But there are others who encourage their employees to use it but with utmost caution.
This video by Citrix provides an overview of the social media policy that the company has been following.  Of course it requires lot of work to customise the policy as per the organisation's needs and objectives.

Are You Passionate about Your Business?

As we enter 2013, many of us have lots of new year resolutions, and especially those in profession or business, do have a very clear plans in their minds what they want to achieve in the year ahead. 

(c) About.com

The year 2013 is most promising for all those "passionate" people who love what they do, and what they represent.  

In one of the facebook studies, I was surprised to know that almost 45% of the small businesses are on the social media.  It is though debatable that whether social media helps someone succeed too, yet the people who love their work and are passionate about it can be found there. They would write about their product, their services, the brand, and share photos with the community.  

For many of the companies in the FMCG sector, health, hospitality, and entertainment business have faired well through their active engagement with their audience through social media. 

Are you passionate about your work? Go ahead and make the best use of the exciting online tools. 
The best part is that 2013 promises to be an era of further integration of multiple platforms, with the entire world in your smart phone. 

Happy 2013.